What West Brom Fans Should Expect from Eric Ramsay Based on His Time in MLS

It’s now official: 33-year-old Welshman Eric Ramsay will be the next manager of West Bromwich Albion FC.

Ramsay won’t be immediately familiar to English football fans, having never played at a professional level. Instead, he launched a coaching career immediately upon graduating from university.

But he certainly knows the upper rungs of the British game, having served on the coaching staffs of the Manchester United first team and Wales men’s national team.

His lone managerial experience comes in Major League Soccer, where he guided Minnesota United to a league record of 29W-16D-20L in nearly two full seasons with the Loons. (Both campaigns ended in defeat in the MLS Western Conference semifinals.

The reputation of MLS managers has received a fresh black eye following Wilfried Nancy’s disastrous, 33-day-long tenure as Celtic FC boss following a successful five-years in MLS with CF Montreal and the Columbus Crew SC.

But Ramsay’s profile is very different from Nancy’s, and there are signs from his time in the Twin Cities that he could be a shrewd hire for the Baggies in their quest to return to Premier League football.

Here’s what Ramsay’s time in North America suggests about the manager he will be in the EFL Championship.

Flexible and ‘Pragmatic’

Ramsay’s MNUFC tactics were pretty unique, but also based on personnel

Matt Blewett | Imagn Images

One of the ironies of the 2025 MLS campaign was that it was Ramsay, the league’s youngest head coach, who played one of the most old-fashioned systems in MLS, opting primarily for a 5-3-2 or 5-4-1. And at their best, Ramsay’s Loons somewhat resembled Unai Emery’s Aston Villa or David Moyes’ best West Ham United and Everton sides over the years, teams that were content to play without the ball to set up opportunities to counter vertically with pace.

But that decision was based on two factors: The breakout of Canadian forward Tani Oluwaseyi and the lack of a true central attacking midfielder, which left Ramsay managing the reality that his two most talented attacking players were Oluwaseyi and fellow striker Kelvin Yeboah.

Ramsay even remarked publicly that the way his side played — with the league’s lowest average possession share at 39.7% — wasn’t necessarily his preferred tactical ideal.

“I’ve really learned as a coach in that sense, that I won’t stray too far away from being very pragmatic in the real, truest sense of the word, in terms of just squeezing the most out of the capabilities of the players that you have in front of you, and being very adaptable and being very flexible,” Ramsay told MLSsoccer.com in November.

Over two seasons, Ramsay also had to adapt on multiple occasions to the unexpected departure of key stars. In 2024, the continuation of Argentine playmaker Emmanuel Reynoso’s absentee saga hampered the first half of Minnesota’s campaign until his May departure, and left the Loons decidedly handicapped in how they could build their squad within MLS rules.

Then this summer, MNUFC received a £7 million offer from Villarreal CF for Oluwaseyi that they couldn’t refuse, sending the forward to La Liga just at the stretch run of the MLS campaign, after he’d scored 10 times in 24 league appearances in 2025.

Young, but not Naive

Ramsay has shown he understands the nuances of managing under scrutiny

Matt Blewett | Imagn Images

Of all the things that went wrong with Nancy’s time at Celtic, perhaps the most predictable for MLS fans was the Frenchman’s inability to understand the position he’d inherited.

Nancy was an excellent tactician in MLS. But he blundered during the rare occasions when he had felt public blowback in Montreal or Columbus, most notably in his handling of an internal team situation involving now- Real Betis attacker Cucho Hernandez.

That was perhaps expected, given that nearly all of his previous coaching experience had come in North America, where scrutiny on pro soccer just isn’t that high. And it shouldn’t be an issue Ramsay struggles with, having experienced the cauldron of pressure that surrounds Manchester United as an assistant for Ralf Rangnick and Erik ten Hag.

Moreover, he even listed the longer leash MLS managers generally enjoy as a reason he preferred to go stateside for his first such senior job, instead of beginning immediately in the English second-tier.

“I wanted an experience that was going to give me the best chance to develop, the opportunity to make some mistakes and manage something that feels big,” Ramsay told BBC Sport in February. “There is pressure you have to deal with, albeit not to the same extent as England. The Championship would have been equally as testing, if not more so, but with that constant nagging doubt, looking objectively, that there is a much shorter life-cycle for guys who go into that league.”

Better-than-expected results meant Ramsay was rarely facing criticism from local press in Minnesota. But he showed the ability to deftly navigate more difficult situations during his time at the club, both in how he handled the Reynoso saga (an ordeal that predated him), and his clear communication about what he could and couldn’t say following alleged discriminatory remarks during a match by Loons midfielder Joseph Rosales.

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

Ramsay’s prompt Minnesota departure shows he may not be long for West Brom either

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While Ramsay was drawn to the slightly longer life cycle MLS managers enjoy, it was also clear that he wasn’t looking to put down extended roots in the American north.

That he’s leaving already suggests he may view the Baggies job similarly, particularly if he succeeds in improving the side but fails in the objective of Premier League promotion.

Ramsay’s Minnesota project is decidedly incomplete, and the 2026 season was setting up to potentially be his best.

The Loons have already signed several starting-level players and still have a £3.4 million surplus for the 2025-26 market, according to Transfermarkt, as a result of their sales of Oluwaseyi, Rosales and Sang-bin Jeong.

West Brom are a club with real Premier League aspirations and financial backing to match, even if this year’s results don’t suggest it. And if they can achieve promotion in the next 18-30 months, there might not be any reason for Ramsay to move on.

But let’s say Ramsay improves the Baggies into a top-half side over the remainder of this season, then reaches the promotion playoffs in 2026-27 but ultimately falls short of promotion, and then gets an offer from the Premier League or another big European league.

His willingness to try something new now suggests he would certainly entertain it.